Hamet, whose blood was chilled with horror, and whose nerves were no longer obedient to his will, after several ineffectual attempts to speak, looked up at Omar; and striking his hand upon his breast, cried out, in an earnest, but faultering voice, ‘What shall I do?’ ’Thou must do,’ said Omar, ’that which is right.  Let not thy foot be drawn by any allurement, or driven by any terror, from the path of virtue.  While thou art there, thou art in safety:  and though the world should unite against thee, by the united world thou canst not be hurt.’

‘But what friendly power,’ said Hamet, ’shall guard even the path of virtue from grief and pain; from the silent shaft of disappointed love, or the sounding scourge of outrageous jealousy?  These, surely, have overtaken the foot of perseverance; and by these, though I should persevere, may my feet be overtaken.’  ‘What thou sayest,’ replied Omar, ’is true; and it is true also, that the tempest which roots up the forest, is driven over the mountain with unabated rage:  but from the mountain, what can it take more than the vegetable dust, which the hand of nature has scattered upon the moss that covers it?  As the dust is to the mountain, so is all that the storms of life can take from virtue, to the sum of good which the Omnipotent has appointed for its reward.’  Hamet, whose eye now expressed a kind of doubtful confidence, a hope that was repressed by fear, remained still silent; and Omar, perceiving the state of his mind, proceeded to fortify it by new precepts:  ’If heaven,’ said he, ’should vanish like a vapour, and this firm orb of earth should crumble into dust, the virtuous mind would stand unmoved amidst the ruins of nature:  for He, who has appointed the heavens and the earth to fail, has said to virtue, “Fear not; for thou canst neither perish, nor be wretched.”  Call up thy strength, therefore, to the fight in which thou art sure of conquest:  do thou only that which is right, and leave the event to Heaven.’

Hamet, in this conference with Omar, having gradually recovered his fortitude; and the time being now near, when he was to conduct Almeida to the court of the palace, where the marriage ceremony was to be performed; they parted with mutual benedictions, each recommending the other to the protection of the Most High.

At the appointed hour, the princes of the court being assembled, the mufti and the imans being ready, and Almoran seated upon his throne; Hamet and Almeida came forward, and were placed one on the right hand, and the other on the left.  The mufti was then advancing, to hear and to record the mutual promise which was to unite them; Almoran was execrating the appearance of the Genius, as a delusive dream, in all the tumults of anguish and despair; and Hamet began to hope, that the suspicions of Omar had been ill founded; when a stroke of thunder shook the palace to its foundations, and a cloud rose from the ground, like a thick smoke, between Hamet and Almeida.